The problem of the categories of time and aspect

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NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF UKRAINE “IGOR SYKORSKY KYIV POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE”

The Chair of Theory, Practice and Translation of English

Term-paper in

Grammatical aspects of translation

“The problem of the categories of the tense and aspect in English”

performed by: the 4th year student

Group LE-43

Ishchuk Dariia Rostyslavivna

supervised by: Taranenko Larysa Ivanivna

Kyiv-2017

Contents

Introduction

Chapter I. A Theoretical Overview of the approaches to the phenomenon of the Categories of tense and aspect in English

1.1 Historical outlook on the study of tense and of aspect

1.1.1 The problem of tense development

1.2 Different views on the notion of the categories of tense and aspect

1.2.1 A general outline of the verb as a part of speech

1.2.2 The category of tense

1.2.3 The category of aspect

1.3 Characteristics of means realizing the categories of tense and aspect

1.3.1 The means that realize the category of tense

1.3.2 The means that realize the category of aspect

Chapter II. The Use of the Categories of tense and aspect

2.1 Types of meaning of the verb acquired in the Category of Tense

2.2 Types of meaning of the verb acquired in the Category of Aspect

Conclusions

References

phenomenon tense english aspect

Introduction

The tense and aspect categories in English are vital components of linguistics that compose the main grammatical basis of the language. This term-paper is going to study such notions as tense and aspect categories, verb forms used in these categories and the way they occur in Modern English. Here we will study that tense refers to the absolute location of an event or action in time, either of the present, past or future, and that aspect refers to how an event or action is to be viewed with respect to time, rather than to its actual location in time. We will also realize that the time and aspect expressions are closely related and that todays' perception of the tense notion is based on their combination.

Topicality is determined by a value of the studied subject which should be regarded as a very important notion in the structure of modern English language. Therefore there rises the necessity of obtaining more profound understanding of these notion and peculiarities of its functioning.

The Object: functioning of the verb in Modern English.

The Subject: characteristics realizing the verbal categories of tense and aspect in Modern English.

The Aim is to characterize and specify the peculiarities of functioning of the verbal categories of tense and aspect by means of analyzing their characteristics in Modern English. The tasks are following:

To outline the historical development of the category of tense and aspect;

To define the notions of the categories of tense and aspect in Modern English;

To characterize and classify the means realizing the verbal categories of tense and aspect;

To analyse the meaning rendered by different verbs in the category of tense and aspect.

Chapter I. A Theoretical Overview of the approaches to the phenomenon of the Categories of Tense and Aspect in Modern English

1.1 Historical outlook on the study of tense and aspect

1.1.1 The Problem of tense development

The earliest theories of tense were formulated by Greeks. In the beginning, the grammatical category of tense was not clearly distinguished from the logical category of time. Tenses were seen (according to the ancient theory of meaning) as reflecting times (albeit indirectly). The Greeks used the same term khronos for time and tense and also the same terms for times and their corresponding tenses (i.e. "past time" and "past tense"), and they did not clearly comprehend the problems caused by doing so. Their theories of meaning led them to conclude that, if there were three times, there must be three tenses.

Today it is natural to think simply in terms of three times--past, present, and future and, hence, of three tenses corresponding to them. According to James Harris, eighteenth-century grammarian, it is the most obvious division of time - into Present, Past, and Future, and nor any language is complete, whose verbs have not tenses to mark these distinctions. This notion of three times is Indo-European heritage and we can find its references in all periods and in nearly all the various branches of the Indo-European language family. In Homer's “Iliad” there is a reference to "things that were, the things to come and the things past". Further evidence comes from the myth of the three Fates or Weird Sisters, who foretell the destinies. These three are daughters of Necessity, on whose knees sits the turning spindle of fate. Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis allots it, and Atropos cuts it off. Respectively, Lachesis sings of the past, of what has been; Clotho of the present, of what is; and Atropos of the future, of what will be. Here are shown what was, what is, and what shall be, or the past, present and future, very aptly designated, and a Fate presiding over each.

Even after twenty-five hundred years of investigation by students of meaning, grammar, logic, and philosophy, tense is poorly understood. "Tense is a mind-boggling business", "we are very far from a general theory of time-related phenomena in natural language'' - wrote different scholars. Yet other scholars write about "getting lost in the subtleties of tense and aspect. Despite the great amount of effort over the centuries toward understanding tense, it remains the case that of the many accounts which have been given of it, none is satisfactory, since they cannot account for many ways in which tenses are used in English and other languages."

1.2 Different views on the notion of the categories of tense and aspect

1.2.1 A general outline of the verb as a part of speech

The verb is the most complex part of speech. This is due to the central role it performs in realizing predication - connection between the situation given in the utterance and reality. That is why the verb is of primary informative significance in the utterance and why some grammarians say that to know the English verb is to know English. The system of the English verb is the most complicated in the language. Verbs are subdivided into numerous subclasses (i.e. modal verbs, auxiliary verbs, verbs of saying, of sense perception, transitive, intransitive etc.) Besides, the verb possesses and characterized by seven grammatical categories: the category of tense, aspect, voice, mood, correlation, etc. Grammatical categories are the grammatical notions (such as number or tense) that are expressed, semantically, by grammatical morphemes. In Modern English the grammatical categories are primarily expressed by word order (the position of a word in a sentence) and by function words, as well as by a few inflections.

1.2.2 The category of tense

Time is a concept of physics and philosophy. Time and space are the basic forms of the existence of matter. We have three main divisions of time: past, present and future. Past and future are perpetual, and present, theoretically, is a fragment of a moment and is the most important because of the immediate perception of the objective reality and ,thus, it coincides with the moment of our speech.

Time is universally conceived as something having one dimension only and thus it is capable to represent it by one straight line. We may arrange the main divisions in the following way:

Fig. 1 - The division of time

From the Figure 1 we may see, for example, that a past-time statement, such as “It rained”, or a future-time statement, such as “It will rain”, denotes a situation that did hold before the present moment or will hold after the present moment, respectively.

We should keep the concepts of time and tense strictly apart because “tense” is a linguistic category, while “time” is a category of the world. Time is the same to all mankind while tenses vary in different languages. Tense stands for a verb form used to express a time relation.

The category of tense can be defined as a morphological category reflecting the objective time and it also expresses the relationship between the time of the action (denoted by predicative verb) and the time of speaking. The form of the verb that indicates the time of the action we speak about is called a tense-form. In simple words, the category of tense is the linguistic indication of the time of an action. The system of tenses in Modern English is rather ramified because it has a number of additional tense-aspect subdivisions that will be considered below.

1.2.3 The category of aspect

The notion of aspect, according to Bernard Comrie, refers to “the different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation”. There are lexical and grammatical aspects and it is customary to distinguish them.

Fig.2 - Lexical and grammatical aspect

According to Zeno Vendler at least four aspectual classes can be distinguished. These are states like “know”, activities like “run”, accomplishments like “cross the street” and achievements exemplified by a verb like “recognize”. Accomplishments describe the internal temporal constituency of a situation in a more detailed way than activities. Crossing the street, for example, includes the starting of a crossing activity which goes on for some time and involves a result state that is characterized by being on the other side of the street. No such elaborate descriptions are necessary for activities or achievements. There are grammatical means of distinguishing between these aspectual classes. For example, states and achievements cannot occur with the progressive, while activities and accomplishments can. These differences are customarily considered to be lexical differences and this area is therefore dubbed lexical aspect.

Fig. 3 - Lexical aspect subdivision

A further crucial aspectual difference is between perfective and imperfective aspect and it is called grammatical aspect. B. Comrie noticed that perfectivity indicates the view of the situation as a single whole, without distinction of the various separate phases that make up that situation, while the imperfective pays essential attention to the internal structure of the situation.

In English the difference between perfectivity and imperfectivity is often expressed by grammatical means, for instance by past tense versus past progressive. Aspect concerns the manner in which a verbal action is experienced or regarded, to set an example, a completed action or an event in progress. Aspect is a notion of time which describes the internal temporal structure of events. In Modern English four grammatical aspects can be distinguished: simple aspect, perfect aspect, progressive aspect and perfect progressive aspect.

1.3 Characteristics of means realizing the categories of tense and aspect

1.3.1 The means that realize the category of tense

The objective time is reflected in the human thought in the form of the notion of temporality and then is represented and consolidated in language with the help of various lingual means (lexical and morphological).

Fig. 4 - Lingual means of temporality

The most abstract means of expressing temporality is the morphological one, for instance, when the grammatical form of the verb (in a generalized and abstract way) indicates the time of the action spoken of, for example:

(he) goes - a present time action;

(he) went there - a past time action that indicates in a very generalized mode that the action of “going” took place before the moment of speaking without concretization of the exact moment of the event;

(he) will go there - a future time action that shows that it will take place after the moment of speaking.

Suchwise, the category of tense may be defined as a morphological category that reflects the objective time and expresses the relationship between the time of the action denoted by the predicative verb and the time of speaking. When we speak about the verb indicating the time of the action, we call it a tense-form.

Besides the existence of the so-called “three-member opposition” of past, present and future - these grammatical tenses, that are correlated with the three main divisions of the objective time, may be used in the functional transposition that differs from their ordinary function. These cases are named as a “non-temporal use of tenses” when the opposition between some tense-forms is neutralized.

1.3.2 The means that realize the category of aspect

Aspect can be defined as the view taken of an event basically whether it is seen as complete and whole (perfective aspect that from Latin means “fully done”) or as incomplete and ongoing (imperfective aspect that from Latin means “”). 

Fig. 5 - Perfective and imperfective aspects

Fig. 6 - Simple aspect

Fig.7 - Perfect aspect

Fig.8 - Progressive aspect

Fig.9 - Perfect progressive aspect

The realization of the category of aspect is closely connected with the lexical meaning of verbs. There are some verbs in English that do not normally occur with progressive aspect, even in those contexts in which the majority of verbs necessarily take the progressive form. Among the so-called `non-progressive' verbs are think, understand, know, hate, love, see, taste, feel, possess, own, etc. The main characteristic they have in common is that they are `stative' - they refer to a state of affairs, rather than to an action, event or process. All the `non-progressive' verbs take the progressive aspect under particular circumstances and thereby can be found in the continuous form: “Now I am knowing you”.

Fig. 10 - The common construction

Chapter II. The Use of the Categories of tense and aspect

2.1 Types of meaning of the verb acquired in the Category of Tense

2.2 Types of meaning of the verb acquired in the Category of Aspect

In English, aspect can be expressed by means of particles, separate verbs, and verb phrases and can acquire different meanings within its four main subdivisions.

Simple Aspect

The Simple Present is the most common form, used primarily to express facts and habits, detail the action of scheduled future events and to tell stories in a more compelling and engaging manner than past tense entails. It takes basic form of the present indicative. The Simple Past is a verb tense that is used to talk about things that happened or existed before now. The simple past tense shows that we are talking about something that has already happened. The Simple Future is a verb tense used to talk about things that haven't happened yet. Use the simple future to talk about an action or condition that will begin and end in the future.

Perfect Aspect

Perfect aspect most often describes events or states taking place during a preceding time. The Present Perfect is used to define actions that began in the past but are still ongoing like "I have gone" or "he has searched.” The Past Perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense used to talk about actions that were completed before some point in the past. It is used for talking about something that happened before something else. The Future Perfect is a verb tense used for actions that will be completed before some other point in the future. The future perfect tense is for talking about an action that will be completed between now and some point in the future.

Progressive Aspect

The progressive aspect describes an event or state of affairs in progress or continuing. In the Present Progressive sentences, a linking verb is often attached to the present progressive verb to indicate events that are ongoing in the present, such as "I am searching" or "he is going" and may carry `habitual' sense. Usually used with adverbs of indefinite frequency (such as always, constantly, continually, forever) to describe events that are regular but unplanned and often undesired. The Past Progressive sentences convey a sense of ongoing action in the past, action that was in progress at some point in the past. The Future Progressive conveys a sense of ongoing action at a particular future time or during a span of time in the future.

Perfect Progressive Aspect

The perfect progressive aspect combines the meaning of the perfect and the progressive, referring to a past situation or activity that was in progress for a period of time. It is rare and usually occurs in the past tense in fiction. The Present Perfect Progressive form is used to indicate a continuous activity that started in the past and is still ongoing or has recently been. The Past Perfect Progressive tense shows that an action that started in the past continued up until another time in the past. It indicates something that began in the past, continued in the past, and also ended at a defined point in the past. The Future Perfect Progressive is a verb tense that describes actions that will continue up until a point in the future. When we describe an action in this tense, we are projecting ourselves forward in time and looking back at the duration of that activity. The activity will have begun sometime in the past, present, or in the future, and is expected to continue in the future.

Conclusions

The categories of tense and aspect are the verbal categories which are functional and delimiting the lexical category. Category of aspect is used to be treated as a part of the tense system in English. They are related morpho-syntactically that means they are realized by verb inflections and auxiliaries or semantically to a verb because both are partaking of the notion time but in distinct ways. These notions represent different sides of time. For example, category of tense represents the chronological order of events in time as perceived by the speaker at the moment of speaking, it locates the time of the event in the sentence relative to now - in the past, present or future, while category of aspect allows speaker to give more information and can indicate time-related characteristics, such as the completion, duration, or repetition of an action viewed by the speaker at a given moment in time. There are four aspects and three tenses that compose the main grammatical basis of the language.

Fig. 11 - Table of the Categories of Tense and Aspect in English

References

1. Binnick, R.I. Time and the Verb: A Guide to Tense and Aspect. -New York, United States of America.: Oxford University Press, 1991.

2. Binnick, R.I. The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect .- New York, United States of America.: Oxford University Press.

3. Kharytonov I. K. Theoretical English Grammar. Ternopil: Bohdan, 2007.

4. Laurel J. Brinton . The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction. - Amsterdam: John Benjamin's Publishing Company, 2000.

5. Morokhovskaya E.J. Fundamentals of Theoretical Grammar. - Kiev: Vysca Skola, 1984.

6. Otto Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. - London, Great Britain: Routeledge.

7. Website: Курс лекций по теоретической грамматике английского языка Тульского университета (http://window.edu.ru/catalog/pdf2txt/740/67740/41104?p_page=1 ).

8. Website: Understanding Verb Tenses (https://www.thoughtco.com/tense-grammar-1692532 ).

9. Video material.: "BBC Masterclass: Tense and Aspect of English Verbs"

10. Video material.: " Lection on Tense, Aspect and Voice" from East Tennessee State University

11. Video material.: " ASPECT and TENSE" by MrSkypelessons

12. Video material.: "Grammar Tense and Aspect" by Tuzi Talks

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